Samson Burns Philistine Crops
15 But after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat, and said, “I will go in to my wife in her room.” But her father did not let him enter. 2 Her father said, “I really thought that you hated her intensely; so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister [a]more beautiful than she? Please let her be yours [b]instead.” 3 Samson then said to them, “This time I shall be blameless in regard to the Philistines when I do them harm.” 4 Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned the foxes tail to tail and put one torch in the middle between two tails. 5 When he had set fire to the torches, he released [c]the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines, thus burning up both the shocks and the standing grain, along with the vineyards and groves. 6 Then the Philistines said, “Who did this?” And they said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because [d]he took his wife and gave her to his companion.” So the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire. 7 Samson said to them, “Since you act like this, I will surely take revenge on you, but after that I will quit.” 8 He struck them [e]ruthlessly with a great slaughter; and he went down and lived in the cleft of the rock of Etam.
There’s this crazy thing about revenge. It only ever escalates until someone stops trying to get revenge. It is for good reason God tells us “vengeance is mine.”
The Philistines thought they would get revenge on Samson by killing his former wife and her father, but that only brought on a “great slaughter”. When you feel wronged, give it to God. No matter how justified you feel, give it to Him.
Trust God to make things right, and to work things for your good (if you love Him and diligently serve Him), and He will not let you down. That doesn’t mean God is going to take revenge for you. It means He can make the best out of some pretty rotten situations, whereas you could only make it worse. “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”